Congratulations to Glenda Burton who was recently awarded the prestigious Angel of the North Award along with others in this region. Glanda’s tireless community work and her devotion to many children she and Allen have cared for over the years was the basis for her well-deserved award.

Look North reporters attended the October Soup & Pud session to interview Glenda and others and the feature that they showed was excellent in highlighting Glenda’s tremendous community commitment and positive attitude, as well as showing off the Parish Hall to full advantage!

The kerb line in Chapel Garth leading to Martindale View has now been improved by Cumbria Highways. It should allow delivery vans, bin wagons and so on the chance to drive in past the parked cars without having to go on the grass. Please help by parking as carefully as you can if you live in that area.

The Parish Council would like to thank Bob Dow and the highways team who carried out the work for their efficient and effective labours.

We have just been informed by Historic England that Warcop’s War memorial has been granted Grade II listed status. We are very proud of our memorial and it means a lot to many people in our community. This decision to award it listed status recognises its significance and also helps to preserve it for future generations.

The Parish Council intends to repair some rotten posts, paint the chain and kerbstones in the near future.

As you will know from our earlier letters we have been considering adding the above memorial to the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.

We have taken into account all the representations made, and completed our assessment of the memorial. I am writing to inform you that having considered our recommendation, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has decided to add Warcop War Memorial to the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. The memorial is now listed at Grade II.

Please follow the link below to download a copy of our advice report, which gives the principal reasons for this decision. The List entry for this building, together with a map, has now been published on the National Heritage List for England, and will be available for public access from tomorrow. This List can be accessed through our website.

Listing helps us to mark a building’s significance and celebrate its special architectural and historic interest. It brings specific protection so that its special interest can be properly considered in managing its future. Listing does not mean, however, that no alterations can be made – in fact in the vast majority of cases applications to make changes to a listed building are approved. Further information about listed buildings can be found on the ‘Your Home’ pages of our website.

The local planning authority will now be preparing the statutory notices required under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.

As of 25 June 2013, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (ERRA) has enabled a number of heritage reforms, including an amendment to the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 that provides two potential ways to be more precise about what is listed. Whether or not the new provisions have been invoked with regard to this memorial is explained in the Advice Report. A List entry that makes use of these provisions will clarify what attached and curtilage structures are excluded from the listing and/or which interior features definitively lack special interest; however, owners and managers should be aware that other planning and development management constraints might apply to these structures, and should clarify these with the Local Planning Authority. Further information is available on our website at http://www.historicengland.org.uk/caring/listing/listed-buildings/listing-and-the-erra/ .

If you consider that this decision has been wrongly made you may contact the DCMS within 28 days of the date of this letter to request that the Secretary of State review the decision. An example of a decision made wrongly would be where there was a factual error or an irregularity in the process which affected the outcome. You may also ask the Secretary of State to review the decision if you have any significant evidence relating to the special architectural or historic interest of the memorial which was not previously considered. Further details of the review criteria and process and how to request a review are contained in the annex to this letter.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance. More information on listing can also be found on our website at https://historicengland.org.uk.

We hope that you have noticed and appreciate the lovely newly-painted railings alongside Crooks Beck in Warcop. They look fantastic! The paint was donated by Cumbria County Council who also repaired a number of concrete posts damaged by Storm Desmond, and we are very grateful to them.

Thank you also to Steve & Yvonne Burnett and Steven & Julie Atkinson and for all their hard work in sanding the metal bars down, painting the undercoat and then applying the gloss paint. There were also other volunteers so thank you and well done to all of them! It’s great that local residents help out and make our village look smarter.

It is an offence to let your dog foul on a playing field or footpath. It can lead to a fine of £75 which can rise to £1000. On behalf of the Parish Council, please can we ask all dog owners to ensure that they collect their dog’s poo and deposit it in the red bins provided in the village? The number of dog owners seems to have increased recently and we know that the majority of dog owners do clear up their dog’s mess. However, we are now seeing dog poo on the village green on the playground area and football pitch as well as on the roads and on public footpaths by the River Eden. If your dog poos on the grass, please pick it up.

Eden District Council have an online report form to report dog fouling or owners who fail to collect dog mess. This is given in the information below and also as a new link on the front page of our website. This is what Eden District Council’s website says:

Dog fouling

Most dog owners are responsible and clean up after their pets, but a small number continue to cause problems. Dog fouling which is left on footpaths and playing fields is a health risk to people and can cause the infection ‘Toxocariasis’ which can lead to blindness.

You can put bagged dog waste in:

It is every dog owner’s duty to clean up after their dog. Do not give all dog owners a bad name.

Report dog fouling

Report dog fouling, especially if you know the dog owner who is failing to pick up after their dog. If the Community Wardens have no information about the dog owners who are not picking up, they can only monitor an area. To tell us of a problem with dog fouling use the:

The new Parish Hall was effectively created and built by the original Trustees of the former Warcop Village Hall and they successfully attracted a lottery grant, wrote a business plan and sold the former Village Hall and Reading Room to fund the building of our new hall. Their contribution has been tremendous and we thank them for all their hard work.

As the last building snagging work is now almost complete, and final expenditure and income related to building work signed off, this original charity will be wound up. A new Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) charity called Warcop Parish Hall, (the name chosen by residents after a local survey,) has been established and will aim to develop the Parish Hall further, extend its activities, cover all its running costs and have all the equipment, policies and facilities needed to operate efficiently and effectively. It will set up a new bank account so that it can operate effectively. The Hall serves the residents of the whole parish, including Bleatarn, Coupland Beck, Sandford and Warcop.

The new Board of Trustees held its Annual General Meeting on the 6th December. The following trustees were appointed and three committees will operate: the already successful Events Group, a Premises Committee and a Development Committee. The minutes of the meeting are on this website under the documents section of the Parish hall.

The Trustees are:

David Keetley – Chair

Peter Foskett – Vice- Chair

Joyce Keetley – Treasurer and Booking Secretary

Sue Austin-Fell – Secretary

Ray Bromby, Lois Wiseman, Tony Dent, Caroline Shaw, Glenda Burton, Pat Burgess and Alan Burgess were also elected as Trustees, with Les Baines Co-opted as a Trustee to the new charity. Clive Allen, from Sandford, has been co-opted to the Premises Committee to make use of his extensive experience of Health & Safety and building management.

There are three committees formed to advance the work of the hall: The Premises Committee will focus on building maintenance and improvements; the Finance & Development Committee will manage the budget and also aim to increase usage of the hall, both occasional and regular activity group users. Finally, the Events Committee will continue to organise the great range of events that are held at the hall each year such as Covernote concerts, Bingo and Dominoes Evenings, Fashion Show, Art & Craft Exhibition for example.

Below is a link to the Management Structure of the new charity which shows both the membership and how each group links to the full Board of Trustees.

Two representatives from Highways England met two Parish Councillors and a member of the community in response to our concerns that the new 50 mph speed limit could still be improved further to make the stretch of road from Appleby Bypass to Brough much safer. We also heard a little more about the progress towards dualling the A66 between Penrith and Scotch Corner.

At the meeting, David Keetley and Tim Wass made a number of requests for action, including:

Installing average speed cameras at appropriate points on the route.

Installing illuminated speed limit signs (as at Church Brough) at the start and end of the route.

Consideration to be given to starting the 50 mph zone at Cafe 66 to give drivers more time to slow down.

Painting additional speed limits signs on the road as reminders.

A request to make the road adjacent to Taylor & Braithwaite no overtaking with double white lines because of dangerous speeding and overtaking problems there.

A request to look at creating a right-turn filter to Flitholme and also a wider slip road for drivers turning left into Flitholme.

A similar request for the Langrigg turn off. The idea of blocking this turn off was raised but that would be a considerable change and would have to have the support of local Parish Councils and residents.

Highways England agreed to go away and consider which of these can be done and they will get back to us with further ideas shortly. They stressed that any works done here to improve road safety were completely independent of any dualling plans, which might well be a few years away anyway.

With regards to dualling, they informed us that a company had been appointed to do the detailed planning and analysis of each section that needed to be dualled. The political will is there and the decision had been taken so now it is a case of looking at route options and priorities. When proposals are finalised, all PCs and local communities along the route will be consulted.

The Parish Council has been asked regularly by Sandford residents when they might expect superfast fibre broadband to arrive in the village. I recently wrote to Connecting Cumbria and I copy their reply below. Essentially, they say that it should be operational by March 2018. They also urge all interested residents to register with Connecting Cumbria so they can be notified by email of progress to connect Sandford.

David Keetley

Chair

Warcop Parish Council

Thank you for your email regarding fibre broadband in Sandford.

I can confirm that that there are now future plans under the Connecting Cumbria programme to make fibre available to your postcode area under Connecting Cumbria by March 2018, this has been done by moving a planned cabinet to be upgraded closer to Sandford to ensure this gets coverage.

The delivery of fibre broadband is a complex process, with many possible engineering problems being encountered during the delivery process. Therefore until the full cabinet and power installation has been completed, we cannot accurately confirm when fibre will be available for residents of Sandford to order.

I would ask you to urge residents to register with us at www.connectingcumbria.org to ensure they receive an email notification when fibre is available to order.

Local residents may have heard that some discussions have been taking place recently with a view to The Chamley Arms re-opening as a pub again. There is certainly interest and a serious proposal to lease the pub and run it on a tenancy basis has been put forward by someone who lives in Warcop. Discussions between the developer and the people interested in running the pub are on-going and we will let you know if there is any firm news, which most local people would be delighted to hear about!

From the 4th September, a new 563 bus service will operate between Appleby and Penrith, Monday to Friday, three times a day, off-peak. This service will be run by Stagecoach and a timetable is attached below. You might be able to arrange a lift to connect with the service at Appleby, or alternatively you can use the Rural Wheels scheme run by Cumbria County Council. Phone 01228 226 428 for further information and see poster below.

The Friends of Eden Transport Group, of which Warcop Parish Council is represented, is exploring the possibility of running a minibus between Kirkby Stephen, Brough, Warcop, Sandford and Appleby to help people in the Upper Eden Valley to link in to the new service, even if this is not every day of the week. It cannot operate on a Tuesday as the Classic Coach 574 service between Kirkby Stephen and Penrith will continue to operate. We will keep you informed if any progress is made on this link route.

Warcop Parish Council has been successful in its application to the Cumbria Community Flood Fund to repair damage caused to the village green and play area by Storm Desmond in December 2015. It has been awarded £15,000 to replace perimeter fencing, a new bridge over the beck, new picnic tables and benches. We are also meeting Eden District Council to see how we can update the play equipment. Thanks to John Heron and Georgie Fell for pushing this forward and also to Sue Fell, who filled in the form and got the necessary quotes and paperwork. We hope to start the work in late summer or early autumn.

A66 request for improvements

Following the recent fatality and other accidents on the A66, the Parish Council contacted Highways England to request that obscured 50 mph signs are made more visible. We have also asked for bigger signs and also illuminated speed limit notices. We await their response. We were also told that the next phase of work on dualling the A66 has gone out to tender and more details might be available in August.

Great North Air Ambulance Collection

Thank you to all who brought bags to our second GNAA collection on the 7th & 8th July. We counted over 100 bags! This raised a tremendous £450 for the GNAA charity which goes towards the running costs of this essential service.

Summer Breeze Concert

The summer concert on the 8th July by local band Covernote was a great success with a fantastic bring-and-share supper and a bar serving Pimms, prosecco and other drinks. It was well attended by people from across the community and just about everyone was soon dancing along to the old favourites! There were also guest musicians and singers which added an extra dimension to the band’s extensive set list. Overall, £540 was raised for the Hall which will go towards the purchasing of much-need equipment.

Hall Improvements

Following the donation of funds raised by the Table Tennis Club and the Thursday Foyer Cafe, the following equipment has been purchased for the hall:

a baby change unit in the disabled toilet

coat hooks in each toilet and the Meeting Room

a new fridge in the kitchen for keeping food chilled for our bigger events.

It is hoped that the next items will be some shelving to go in store rooms to take smaller items off the floor. We are also investigating new comfortable chairs and lightweight tables to replace the old ones.

We have now decided to re-start the Badminton sessions. Sessions are start at 7:30 pm, after Clubbercise.

Starters/inexperienced players 7:30 -8:30 pm

Intermediate/advanced players 8:30 – 9:30 pm

Adults £2, Children under -16 £1

If any group wants to book the hall privately to play badminton, there are plenty of sessions available (see Parish Hall Events Calendar) and we have all the equipment, so contact Joyce on 41390 to book a time.

Thank you to all the residents who volunteered and gave up their time on Saturday 11th March to help clean up the litter in Warcop. 15 people turned up and we collected over 25 bags of rubbish from the two roads from the A66, the area near the recycling centre, through the village and along the road to Kirkby Stephen. It looks a lot cleaner now and we hope it might stay that way!

We intend to do similar clean ups in Sandford and Bleatarn later in the year.

Afterwards, the volunteers were treated to a cup of tea or coffee and some cakes in the Parish Hall. It was great to see so many people helping our community and especially nice to see so many new residents who have only recently moved into the Parish.

Thanks to Parish Councillor Georgie Fell for delivering all the equipment from Eden District Council and we really appreciate their help in supplying the bags, gloves, hi-viz vests, pickers and so on and also for agreeing to collect the piles of rubbish.

Following the end of Paul Jackson’s milk delivery service, a new provider has come forward to operate the round in a similar way to the previous service. Neil and Dee Veitch will start deliveries to Warcop on Monday, 6th February and every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday thereafter.

Many people have already contacted them to ensure that they receive their milk delivery, but if you haven’t yet done so (and this includes Warcop, Bleatarn and Sandford residents,) then please do so as soon as possible. Tell other people about it too!

Residents will be pleased to know that a new weekly bus service on Tuesdays between Kirkby Stephen and Penrith is to start operation on Tuesday 31st January. A timetable link is attached below. As yet, we have no information on costs.

It is hoped that lots of people will use the new service as this will only help the case for a more comprehensive service by another operator which is still being explored.